When Charles de Gaulle fled his prostrate country in 1940, he was all
that the Free French hadand he had nothing: "Not the shadow of a
force or of an organization at my side. In France, no following and no
reputation.
Abroad, neither credit nor standing." Four years later, the obscure
and penniless general had helped liberate France, become its first
postwar President, and taken his place among world statesmen of the
first rank. History records no more telling example of the will to
power.